Mistress Mudblood
by Deathslash
Summary: Hermione always thought she wanted to marry Ron. However, her life with him post-Voldemort has left her underwhelmed, unchallenged and unhappier than she would care to admit. When an old enemy walks into back into her life, Hermione sees a chance to seize a new kind of life that Ron will never be able to offer her. But will she destroy her existence to temptations of a new one?
1. Prologue - Crossroads

**Prologue - Crossroads**

* * *

The night was warm, and Hermione Granger couldn't sleep. She supposed she could have taken a sleeping draught, but there was a small part of her that didn't quite trust the use of magic in that way; it seemed like taking recreational drugs. Anyway, she had never been able to put a problem off until the next day.

Particularly since tomorrow was her wedding day.

She was staying at home, or rather, her parents' home; a three-storey townhouse in Summertown, Oxford. She felt she owed it to her family to spend the night here, to make them feel on a more equal footing with her future in-laws, but the truth was – and she knew her parents knew it – that she had become a fully-fledged witch a long time ago, and that she'd never really be part of the Muggle World anymore. With that thought, she got up and crossed the bedroom she'd grown up with, pulled back the curtains, letting the light of the full moon stream in. She hung out the open window, suddenly feeling a huge sense of déjà vu, and with it, loss.

She found herself taken back to that time, just under twelve years ago, before she had left to embark for Hogwarts and her new life in the Wizarding World. She'd had no idea what she was walking into; it was a little scary, but this fear had been easily superseded by the thrill of such an extraordinary challenge. She was a witch! Did it get any better than that?! It was surely more exciting than the alternative dull certainty of privilege and academic brilliance at d'Overbroeck's College. And she hadn't been wrong. Now, she knew she was at a similar crossroads, but felt due to take the less interesting route this time.

Hermione had fallen in love with Ron Weasley several years ago, when she'd still been virtually a child. All they had been through had only strengthened those feelings. They had been so perfect together; he had made her more relaxed, fun and helped her not to take herself so seriously. For her part, she knew that she had made him more thoughtful, more tolerant and caring. When the war was over and Voldemort defeated, the ecstasy of saving the world and being with Ron had been almost overwhelming. In reality she was never going to be like his mother, happy to devote her life solely to him and – in time - his children, but if in those first few months if he'd asked her to, she might well have been happy to agree to.

Over the last few years, however, something had shifted. She thought about the last meal she'd had with Ron's family at the Burrow only a week ago. Ron – as usual – spent the time speaking about Quidditch with George, Ginny and Bill. Apparently the Chudley Cannons had lost the national cup…or something, and Ron had been in a bad mood over it. There'd been a time when Hermione would have found that a quite sweet, and would have been happy to humour him over it. Now though, it annoyed her. It was only Quidditch, just a sport. Who cared? Wasn't the grindylow exploitation scandal which had exploded in Sweden more interesting? Weren't the redundancies of goblins at Gringotts - replaced by wizards – more worthy of debate? Nobody seemed interested in her burgeoning career in at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures; all the talk was about which celebrities Ginny was meeting after being signed as a reserve for the Hollyhead Harpies. None of them was quite as famous as Viktor Krum, Hermione had noted wryly.

That joke hadn't gone down well.

The rest of the evening had been dominated by Mr. Weasley asking her patronising questions about "muggle things". She didn't mind explaining things to him, but at the same time she felt like telling him to buy some books and read them, if he was so interested. Mrs. Weasley was no better. When Hermione had been younger, Molly's incessant fussing and mothering had been endearing; now, it infuriated her that she still babied Ron so much, that she wasn't giving him any incentive to make more of a commitment to his Auror training. Privately, Hermione knew that Ron was the least gifted of everyone on the programme, and that unlike Harry, he just didn't have a talent for defensive magic. He'd only pull through if he worked twice as hard. There was no way that she, Hermione, could do it all for him anymore. She was irritated by his laziness and bored by his limited conversation. However his proposal of marriage, done over dinner on the anniversary of Hermione's founding of S.P.E.W, had temporarily extinguished these concerns.

Hermione snapped back to the present. She couldn't call off the wedding, not now. Wasn't she just being ridiculous, like any other bride-to-be? Everyone has nerves before their wedding night, and she must have known that life with Ron would never be perfect. She went over to the bedside table, and picked up a moving photograph of the two of them together. In it, Ron was pushing her on a swing in the local park. Higher and higher she swung, until eventually she slid off backwards into a patch of mud, and the empty seat swung back and hit Ron in the face. There was a moment of shock, and then the two figures started laughing, and the cycle repeated itself. Hermione giggled to herself, then felt a tear trickle down her cheek.

She loved him, but she knew she was also settling for him. And she couldn't tell anyone how she really felt. The large support network she'd built up for herself began to feel like Devil's Snare through which she couldn't reach. Her friends were Ron's friends, or his family. Attempting to confide her womanly feelings in Harry had in the past been…less successful. Who else? Her parents, she knew, were rather biased towards the Weasleys in general, particularly Ron. They'd only use her doubts to talk her out of the marriage. It wasn't snobbishness, Hermione thought, but her mum and dad just didn't think Ron was intellectual or "socially aware" enough for her. It was a bit ironic, considering how little they knew about the Wizarding World – not that Hermione had chosen to enlighten them.

She got back into bed, and was dismayed to see that it was already quarter to two. She didn't want to look tired tomorrow, if she was going down the aisle. She put all doubts out of her mind and focused instead on the fine details of the ceremony tomorrow. For the benefit of Hermione's extended family, it was going to be a traditional muggle ceremony, in a church followed by a reception at a hotel, then a wedding breakfast the next morning. Wizarding ceremonies seemed not to be as drawn-out. Her only female friends, Ginny and Luna Lovegood, were arriving by Floo Powder at seven to help her get ready. That should be interesting. She had visions of Luna doing her make-up like a lioness as some sort of symbolic gesture, and regretted asking her to come along. She wouldn't be in the mood for Luna's conspiracy theories and spiritual rubbish tomorrow.

Gradually, she began to doze off, thoughts swirling around in her head. She sighed; she wouldn't have any of these worries if she were marrying Draco.

She sat bolt upright in bed, feeling a cold chill break out over her skin. That nasty voice had entered her head again, the same one that had first appeared when she'd seen Draco Malfoy on his first day at the Ministry, almost a year ago. At the time, it had been nearly two years since she had last seen him, and he had largely disappeared from her mind; all his remarks about her blood status, all his bullying ways had become an irrelevant childish memory. She'd never thought that she'd have anything more to do with him. But that day…things had been different. He'd changed somehow, and Hermione couldn't explain why she'd begun to feel as she had done. His sardonic wit had been funny rather than cruel and he'd looked confident rather than cocky. These changes didn't seem yet to have manifested in Ron.

She felt sick. She got out of bed again, to take a literal good long look in the mirror at the vanity table. Hermione had little time for vanity, so she rarely bothered with mirrors, and her "vanity unit" was more of another place to pile up her book collection. Perhaps this was why she was so surprised at her reflection. She didn't see a twenty-three year old, highly intelligent, ambitious girl on the eve of her wedding; she saw an older woman, married seven years, reconciling herself to an unsatisfactory fate. She remembered a time when she'd had such a zest for her life; all the months spent on the run solving the clues, running into trouble, barely escaping death. To destroy horcruxes, to defeat Voldemort…the horrible truth was, that she'd relish a chance to do the same thing all over again. Her life had seemed rather empty ever since.

Ron couldn't offer her any solution to this. But someone else could.

She went back to bed, and eventually fell asleep. She dreamed deeply, but her future as Ron's wife could not have been further from her mind. Instead, Hermione recalled the rollercoaster of events that had taken her to this point, escaping from her destiny for just a few hours, at least.

* * *

 **A/N - Thank you for reading this prologue. I know this is a little short, but the story is set to develop and expand quite considerably. I've rated this story as T purely because I don't want to be too limited and intend to write more adult themes as Hermione's journey unfolds. I've gone a bit Tarantino and made this prologue set in advance of the actual story purely so set the scene; there aren't any plans for repeated time skips, which can be quite irritating!**

 **This will be a shameless Hermione/Draco fanfic; I know there are thousands upon thousands out there, but their relationship beyond Hogwarts is one which I feel is worth exploring and one which I've always thought could be realistic (!) Feel free to disagree :) J.K. Rowling has confirmed that she now doesn't think Hermione/Ron is particularly realistic either.**


	2. The Office

**July, 2002.**

It all began on what had promised to be a thoroughly normal day.

Hermione woke up promptly at 6.30AM, climbed out of bed and put on her dressing gown. Normally, she'd have had to wake Ron with a nudge in the ribs – or with a tickling charm, if she were in a playful mood – but today was his day off, so she left him to snore loudly behind her as she headed downstairs for breakfast. Hermione had been living primarily with the Weasleys since she'd completed her N.E. , but it was only comparatively recently that she'd actually moved into Ron's room after Ron had broached the subject with his parents.

" _Ron, you went to boarding school!"_ Arthur had said heartily, _"I imagine that sort of thing went on all the time, just like when we were there, right dear?"_

" _Arthur, please!"_

Apparently they were totally cool with it, although Hermione still had to tolerate a suggestive look from George almost every time she went into the room. Hermione had also had to change the décor; she'd allowed Ron to keep the room orange, but had got rid of most of the quidditch posters. Ron kept the room as clean as she could have expected and on the whole, everything was to her satisfaction.

Predictably, Molly was already in the kitchen when Hermione got there, tending to bacon and fried eggs at the stove. The breakfast table was already set, plates and cutlery sparkling as usual. Did this woman never want to cut herself a break? Not that Hermione minded, but she did often feel a little guilty to have such an efficient homemaker tending to her every domestic need, and felt even guiltier that it was the primary reason she hadn't suggested that she and Ron get a place of their own yet.

"Morning dear," she beamed at Hermione, though she looked a little tired, "Another tough day at the office to look forward to?"

"Mmm," Hermione nodded, already munching through her first slice of buttered toast. "Sorry, yes," she said sliding into a chair and taking a sip of apple juice, "I can't complain though; I'd be lying if I said I don't like what I do," she laughed. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy my job."

Molly studied Hermione for a moment and opened her mouth to speak, but then apparently thought better of it, and returned to fussing over the bacon. "Lovely day, isn't it?" she said after a brief pause, in a voice that was just a little too high.

"What is it?" Hermione asked in genuine concern. She put down her toast. "You can tell me."

"Oh it's just…well, it's…you probably wouldn't want to, but I thought I'd ask."

"Molly," Hermione gave an awkward laugh, and stood up. "Come on; whatever it is, you know I won't mind. I'm practically part of the family now," she said, immediately regretting it when she saw the look on Molly's face.

Molly turned around and beamed so brightly her face flushed red. "Oh, that's wonderful that you think so, dear!" She looked as though a visible weight had been lifted off her shoulders, and Hermione couldn't help but be relieved too. "It's just that there have been some occasions recently where I've thought that we might be neglecting you, that's all. Ron's just so lucky to have you!" She put down the spatula and crossed the kitchen, enveloping Hermione in a bear hug. Hermione knew that Molly could be emotional, but she had no idea what she'd done to bring all this on.

"Anyway," Molly drew away from her, "that leads me to ask…how would you feel about being on the clock? Since you're living here now, Arthur and I thought it was high time we asked."

Hermione was nonplussed, thinking that Molly must be referring to some kind of schedule. Then it dawned on her; the clock Molly was talking about was a great Grandfather clock in the hallway, where the arms were decorated with the faces of everyone in the family. Instead of numbers around the clock face, there were instead various locations written; whenever a member of the family was in a certain location, the hand with their face on it would point their location out on the clock. Right now, Hermione imagined, most of the hands would point to "Home."

Molly was right. Hermione did not want to be "on the clock"; it had in the past been generally innocuous enough and had even been a great benefit in earlier years, during the Second Wizarding War. Now that the Weasley children were all adults and relatively safe from harm, however, Hermione could not help but feel that she were spying every time she happened to glance at this enchanted clock. She certainly did not want her whereabouts known to anyone in the house at any given time (not that she ever went anywhere without telling them anyway). But Molly obviously considered being "on the clock" something of an honour; Hermione suspected that her feeling was that Hermione would decline on the basis that in was too much to ask, rather than that she didn't want to be spied on. In that instant though, as so often, politeness got the better of her.

"Oh, that sounds lovely," she said, forcing a smile, "it's so nice of you to ask, but it seems like a bit of a bother for you -"

This was evidently exactly what Molly had wanted to hear. "Of course not!" she interjected delightedly, "it's no trouble at all; in fact," she bit her lip guiltily and continued quite quickly but with a crack in her voice, "it's looked a bit bare since Fred…now that Fred's face isn't on there." She turned away and dug out a handkerchief from her apron, "I'm so sorry," she dabbed her eyes, giving an overly wide smile, "just being silly. I'm so glad you feel welcome here, Hermione."

 _Bloody hell._

Hermione was defeated. She could hardly refuse this offer now.

"Let's set it all up when I get back from work then!" she said, making every effort to sound as thrilled as Molly. "Speaking of which," she added, glad of a chance to escape the kitchen, "I'd better hurry up and get ready; no Time-Turner now!" What a relief too, she thought

"Yes…" Molly's eyes began to well up again, "You get on, dear…" She turned to the kitchen table and, with a flick of her wand, the crumbs on Hermione's empty plate disappeared and the juice-stained glass became sparkly once again.

Hermione dashed off upstairs, a light sinking feeling in her heart. When she returned to her room, Ron was still fast asleep as expected. Hermione quickly changed into her work gear, a red blouse and grey suit she'd laid out over the chair the night before. She put on her shoes and headed off, pausing only to check her reflection in the mirror on the way out. She looked perfectly presentable, and wondered briefly why she cared so much about whether she was having her own hand on the Weasleys' clock.

It wasn't like anything exciting or unexpected ever happened to her.

When she had first started at the Ministry of Magic, Hermione's journey to work every morning had taken a matter of seconds; she would simply exit the front door of the Burrow each morning and apparate directly into the Atrium of the Ministry. However, she'd quickly grown to dislike this; while she was certainly adept at focusing enough to apparate successfully – unlike certain other wizards, who were training to be aurors – it was never pleasant. Plus, she didn't enjoy the fact that in apparating there was no real distance time-wise between her work and home life. She was a person who enjoyed the business of necessary transit as a time of reflection.

So, she'd taken to using the Floo Network instead. At first she'd been worried that other people might think her a bit weird for choosing to spend more time travelling to work, but it turned out that many people felt exactly the same way she did. Every day, she went from the Weasleys' fireplace to an unassuming wizard's inn called The Phoenix and then made the journey through the streets to the famous red phone box which descended to Ministry HQ. It was always nice to get some fresh air in the morning.

Hermione arrived at her office ten minutes early. Well, it wasn't strictly _her_ office, but one she shared with two other junior members of staff in her department. The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures was located on Level Four, giving Hermione a decent view of the Atrium out of her window. From here she could view pretty much everything that was going on at Ground Level, perfect for such a busybody.

She loved it. In the Muggle World, the office would probably have had the design scheme "Victorian Post Office"; ornate upholstered chairs sat at intricately carved oak desks, newspapers, parchment and inkwells dotted all about the place. In the corner of the room a miniature palm tree stood in a red mosaic-style plant pot, a little nod to exoticism. The only trace of magic was the artificial breeze that Hermione conjured up, and a moving portrait of a Hippogriff on the back wall.

Hermione took her seat, and began to flick through the small pile of papers that were neatly stacked up at the side of her desk. What had she got to do today? The most interesting of the tasks she was currently working on concerned the reclassification of Grindylows to a Class Three beast from a Class Two beast (in other words, officially identifying the creatures as more dangerous). It sounded quite dull on paper, but Hermione's job had been to investigate a series of Grindylow attacks on wizards in the Lake District that had recently occurred, and to determine the level of provocation.

She picked up the draft of parchment which compiled the list of her findings. In all, if this was a civil court battle between human and Grindylow – which it really, really wasn't, she'd had to remind herself – she'd be on the side of the Grindylow. While interviewing the "victims", she'd found that many of them were male wizards her own age and that – shockingly – they had been embroiled in a sort of scrape with Grindylows during some "kind of pre-wedding ritual, just a prank," which had involved going out to the centre of one of the lakes – Windermere, Ullswater – employing a kind of protective charm, swimming to the bottom, and trying to get a Grindylow back into the boat, without being spotted by any Muggles.

" _That sounds quite funny actually,"_ Ron had said, much to Hermione's displeasure.

In short, stag nights seemed to be catching on in the Wizarding World.

In Hermione's view, anyone doing something so stupid deserved to get their arm bitten. But, as was so often the case, the Ministry had listened to the case of the revellers, backed up by a few spurious claims from other fame-seeking individuals in other parts of the country. So, Hermione had pledged her case in her document she intended to submit to her boss later that day, stating that she didn't believe in the victimisation of any creature for sport, and that there was no sense in reclassifying Grindylows on the basis that certain idiots were going out looking for them for a laugh. Or words to that effect.

"Morning, Hermione!"

A young, mixed-race witch with long, pillar-box red hair breezed into the room. Shauna Williams was a few years older than Hermione – twenty-seven, to be precise; Hermione could vaguely remember her at Hogwarts – and very friendly, but did not quite possess the same level of ambition or skill. She'd worked at the Ministry at least five years longer than Hermione but never showed any inclination of wanting to move up the career ladder. Like Hermione though, she enjoyed her work and loved working with animals and other mystical beings. Shauna was a staunch vegan and ethicist.

"Hey, Shauna," smiled Hermione, "How are things?"

"Great," Shauna gave her the thumbs-up, before noticing the draft of parchment Hermione was working on. "Fucking hell, you're finishing that Grindylow stuff already? At this rate, you'll be my boss soon." There was just the tiniest hint of resentment in her voice.

"Oh, I don't know about that," Hermione lied, knowing full well that if anyone was being promoted here, it was going to be her. "Anyway…yeah, I'm just finishing it. Going to pop it in to Dedworth's office this afternoon. Then I've got to deal with the petitions from that group who want to make centaur-human marriage legal…"

"Sickos," snarled Shauna, "Anyway, you know what centaurs are like; they probably hate the idea more than we do."

"Hmm," nodded Hermione, thinking with satisfaction of Lavender Brown and her crush on their centaur Divination teacher, Firenze. "Yeah, it's all a bit weird, isn't it? Anyway, is Terry joining us today?"

Shauna shrugged, sighed, and turned to her own stack of paperwork. It was significantly higher than Hermione's. "I don't know," she smiled knowingly, and looked over at Hermione, "fancies you, you know."

"He does not; we're just friends," Hermione felt herself blushing. She liked Shauna, but she had a habit of not knowing when to give it a rest. The two of them had had this conversation several times before; Hermione thought Shauna would have got the message by now.

As if on cue, the third member of their office, Terry Boot, opened the door and strode purposefully into the room. "Morning!"

"Morning, Terry," replied both girls in unison, Shauna waggling her eyebrows at Hermione while Terry turned to hang up his coat. She quickly gave her wand a suggestive flick from horizontal to vertical, and Hermione averted her eyes, much to Shauna's amusement.

"What's so funny?" asked Terry, his eyes shifting from Shauna to Hermione, and looking down at himself, as though he might have misplaced or spilled something down his front.

"Oh, nothing," Shauna waved her hand dismissively, "just girl talk. You wouldn't understand."

Hermione had known Terry Boot a long time; almost as long as she'd known Ron. He'd been in her year at Hogwarts, though she hadn't particularly been friends with him at the time. She had however shared numerous classes with him, and got to know him a bit better during their time with Dumbledore's Army. He was a clever, hardworking and serious sort – a bit like herself – and who knows? If indeed she had been sorted into Ravenclaw like Terry, she could easily have become close to him, as she was now. He wasn't bad looking; he was only a couple of inches taller than her, but stocky, with sandy brown hair and lots of freckles (though nothing like Ron). Today, however, he looked a little flustered.

"You alright, Terry?"

"Oh, yeah," Terry sat down at his desk. He was wearing a blue sweater with a small eagle embroidered above the heart area; this homage to a Hogwarts House might have been a bit square, but it wasn't uncommon among Ravenclaws. He looked a little agitated.

"Dedworth wants to see you; I just saw him on the way in. Oh, it's nothing bad," he laughed nervously at Hermione's startled expression. "Well, he seemed quite excited, to be honest. It's just that, I don't know, it was a bit weird. Anyway," he said quickly, and much to Hermione's confusion, "you might as well go to his office now. You know he never sits still for more than a few minutes."

"Yeah…" Hermione stood up, and gave a cursory glance at Shauna, who returned a quizzical look as Hermione rolled up her parchment on the Grindylows. "Might as well get it over with, whatever it is."

"Maybe I was right about the promotion thing," Shauna shrugged. "Cup of tea?" she turned to Terry as Hermione left the room. Evidently she sensed gossip; Shauna was pretty good at that, too.

* * *

Wondering what she had done – or was going to be asked to do - Hermione made her way down the various bustling corridors towards Richard Dedworth's office, which was, inconveniently, located on the other side of the Atrium, albeit on the same floor. She didn't like Dedworth; she knew that he was less interested in magical welfare as he was in salary increases. He was oily and smarmy, and had Slytherin written all over him. Dedworth had been her superior ever since she'd started, and she'd never felt anything other than a sense of regret that she didn't have someone more admirable to serve as a mentor. She was certain that something that "excited" Richard Dedworth was not something that would ever fill her with a great sense of enjoyment.

She arrived at Dedworth's office door – a great pine arching creation that he kept redesigning, which currently had "RICHARD DEDWORTH – JUNIOR MANAGER OF THE BEAST DIVISION" written in tacky gold-plated lettering – and gave a quiet knock.

"Come in!" Dedworth's voice was significantly cheerier than usual, which Hermione didn't necessarily find encouraging.

She opened the door, and nearly had a heart attack.

Dedworth was sitting at his desk, but Hermione barely even noticed him. She was instead fixated on the other man in the room, who had stood up as she entered.

He didn't look too different to the last time she'd seen him. He'd put on a bit of weight so looked slightly healthier, but he was still very pale and the hair, which had previously been unruly, was back in the slicked-back style he'd had it in when she'd first laid eyes on him. As was his habit, he was dressed entirely in black, from his leather shoes to his shirt (the room was warm, but the sleeves were not rolled up). There was even a long trench coat slung over the back of the chair he'd been sitting in. She looked into his cold, grey eyes. There was only a hint of reticence there, and for a moment Hermione thought that he might actually offer a polite greeting, but then came the conceited smirk she'd seen so often before.

"Alright, Granger?" said Draco Malfoy.


End file.
